Anxious Affections
by starshollow
Summary: A secret mindnight rendezvous, a budding romance, and just an all around good time. *Lane/Dave* {IMPROV}


Title: Anxious Affections  
  
Author: Jules  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Improv: #15, sleep~map~satin~ember  
  
Disclaimer: I am no more involved with GG that the man in the moon. I write only because I enjoy it and because I am often left unsatisfied from week to week.  
  
Author's Notes: Erm, this is my first improv fic, though I've been lurking for quite some time, and it is dedicated to Trixie, my fellow Sagittarian, happy birthday!  
  
Spoilers: Hmm, well if you haven't seen the third season, you won't have a clue as to who Dave is, and therefore really wouldn't understand the story, and there are brief references to episodes 303, 304, and 309, so if you haven't seen those, you may or may not catch them.  
  
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Lane tossed in bed, unable to sleep, and drifting in and out of consciousness, when suddenly she seemed to remember something important, something from her dreams, and yet something more tangible than that.  
  
Quietly, she tiptoed over to her closet, opened the sliding doors carefully to avoid the dreadful squeak they sometimes emitted. She curled up in her sparkly butterfly chair, a secret Christmas gift from Rory and Lorelai, tucking her feet beneath her, and flicked a few switches, turning on her lava lamps and star print disco ball, which caused the small space to be bathed in an ethereal glow, similar to the dying embers in her mother's antique wrought iron upright stove left burning on any of the freezing cold nights so common to Connecticut winters.  
  
After sitting peacefully for a moment, she rose and began to shuffle through a stack of papers, mostly sheet music, near the door, searching desperately for a scrap of paper that was the cause for and yet solution to her insomnia. A few moments later, she emerged triumphantly, her fingers grasped tightly around a half sheet of notebook paper with faint, smudged, pencil markings scattered on it, at last she'd found the treasure of her frantic quest. She hadn't imagined it, and, in fact, with the fog slowly lifting off her drowsy mind, she vaguely remembered David thrusting the wadded paper into her palm after Thanksgiving dinner and that wonderfully sweet, though short, secret kiss outside her home afterward. Dave was one of a kind, she thought to herself, sighing, after all, how many boys had actually met her mother and lived to tell about it, much less been graced with praise.  
  
It wasn't technically a map, at least not of the cartographical type, more like a peculiar love letter of sorts, with hastily scribbled directions and a diagram near the bottom. 'How could I forget, no wonder I couldn't sleep,' she thought to herself. She shut off the lights and shot up, a little too quickly, bumping her head briefly on the sloping ceiling.  
  
As she closed the door behind her with one hand, and rubbed her throbbing head with the other, she hurried over to her window, throwing on a pair of green pants and a black pullover on her way to the window. She squinted to read the note in the moon's reflection through the windowpane, and let out a soft gasp of distress when she discovered that she only had twenty minutes to report halfway across town to the designated location to meet Dave for a secret rendezvous away from her mother's watchful eye.  
  
With little more than a thought to what said mother would do if she caught her only daughter sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet a boy, a musician no less, she hopped out the window and crept into the shadows of the early morning. ' What's one more week at Korean Bible Camp anyway, especially if it means seeing Dave again,' she thought, as she crept into the night.  
  
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Dave sat on the cold stump quietly, almost to the point of meditation. His anxiety surged and he began humming one of the bands latest covers to ease his thoughts. He glanced at his indigo-lit watch for perhaps the dozenth time in the last three minutes.  
  
'What if she forgot? What if she got caught by her mother whilst sneaking out? What if...' he stood up and began to shift nervously on his feet.  
  
Just then his fears began to flee as a flushed and gasping Lane flew around the back corner of the block, entering the final stretch to the abandoned lot down the street from his own residence. He smiled as he took in her appearance, it was endearing really, her rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, her dark sweatshirt with the glow-in-the-dark XTC logo across the chest, her hair that shone like satin in the moonlight, it was all too much, and he couldn't resist reaching out to her when she stood close enough to smooth the stray frizzing hairs and draw her closer into to him.  
  
"Hi," she breathed out softly.  
  
"Hi yourself," he whispered back, pulling her down to his level.  
  
She half stumbled out of shock and landed rather ungracefully across his lap, but Dave was prepared and righted her quickly, wrapping his arms around her waist. Lane leaned back into his embrace unsurely; her side against his right shoulder, and leaned her head onto his.  
  
Together they sat in the warm serenity so typical of budding romance, simply enjoying each other's company, watching stars and talking quietly about the best bands and covers of the late-twentieth century. After a few hours of friendly chatter, Lane had dozed off on his shoulder, her face into his neck, and Dave, content to let her sleep, had drifted off as well, having moved them both to a blanket he'd laid out near his previous post.  
  
As the sun's rays began to creep ever so subtlety over the horizon, Dave's watch alarm chimed the hour and he awoke. He gazed disoriented at the digital face, waiting for the numbers to come into focus until he could make out a distinct five amongst the zeros and began to poke Lane lightly.  
  
"Hey, sleepyhead, wake up," Dave whispered in her ear lightly.  
  
Lane woke after a few urges from Dave and sat up sharply, her head connecting with his in the same spot she'd bumped it before. As much as it stung, she couldn't suppress the giggle that escaped and was left explaining to Dave her predicament of earlier in her closet sanctuary. She stood and climbed out of his embrace, brushing invisible specks of dust off her pants and dew crystals out of her hair.  
  
Wanting to prolong her time with Dave as much as possible, she stalled her departure by regaling him with the story he claimed she hadn't finished yesterday evening of the time she'd convinced Rory to dye her hair purple in rebellion but chickened out at the last minute and dyed it back. She thought she'd told him the whole story earlier, and perhaps she had and he simply wished to be amused once more. She began to walk away purposely slow, promising to one day show Dave the Polaroid that Lorelai kept safe at their house. Before she got to far, however, Dave called out to her, and gently stepped forward, pulling her into him and planting another chaste kiss on her lips to hold her over.  
  
After a smile and another quick smooch, she began to back away from him, slowly so as not to trip and fall. When she came to the end of the block she waved one final time, and disappeared into the sunrise. Dave let himself back into his own home, praying that Lane made it back before her mother arose, a tragic event that would surely bring their happiness to a screeching halt.  
  
Across town, Lane to hurried back to her own street and shimmied up through her window and into her room, plopping unceremoniously onto her bed. She sighed quietly as the sun began to shine through her window, breathing in softly and catching a whiff of Dave's cologne off the collar of her sweater as she pulled it over her head and, reaching over, depositing it neatly beneath her bed, making a mental note to place the forbidden item amongst her closet collection later in the day. Lane laid back on her pillow, set her glasses on the nightstand, and, hoping to catch one quick dream before her mother woke, drifted off to sleep with a secret grin on her face, the events of late replaying over in her mind. 


End file.
